Women Rugby Union Coaches’ Experiences of Formal Coach Education in Ireland and the United Kingdom: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Although the sport of rugby union has expanded globally in both the men’s and women’s formats recently, there remains an under-representation of women coaches across all contexts. Research has focused its analysis on the under-representation of women coaches in a select few sports such as soccer. No extant research has empirically analyzed this under-representation within rugby union. This study addressed this research lacuna on why this under-representation exists from the perspective of 21 women rugby union coaches based within the United Kingdom and Ireland. The specific research objective was to analyze the coaches’ lived experiences of attending formal coach education courses in rugby union. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed thematically and conceptualized via an abductive logic against LaVoi’s Ecological-Intersectional Model and Pierre Bourdieu’s species of capital. Supportive and positive themes reported how the coach education courses had been delivered in a collegiate and lateral manner. Courses thus acted as settings where greater amounts of cultural and social capital could be acquired from both course tutors and peers. This enabled social networks to be made that were used for continual professional development beyond the courses. Barriers and negative experiences orientated upon the lack of empathy imparted by course tutors on account of men having fulfilled these roles on most occasions. Recommendations on how national governing bodies can improve the experiences of women coaches attending future coach education courses are discussed.

More than rugby: A scoping review of coaches in rugby

“…72,113,118,122,132 Only two studies specifically investigated coaches working in women's rugby (n = 2, 2%). 31,48 Thirty-three percent (n = 35, 33%) of studies were on youth rugby only, 52% (n = 55, 52%) on senior rugby, nine percent (n = 9, 9%) on both youth and senior rugby and the remaining percentage of the studies did not specify. Only 23 studies (n = 23, 22%) reported all demographic data.…”

“…Forty-three studies reported on coaches' training knowledge. 18,29,31,36,37,40,[42][43][44][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][61][62][63][64][66][67][68][69][70]73,74,76,80,81,[85][86][87]89,90,92,93,128,131 Eight of these studies were based on rugby league. 43,56,62,64,[66][67][68]81 Coaches agreed that monitoring players are important for training.…”

International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE) 13th Global Coach Conference

“…The two primary delivery methods of formal CE are through higher education (HE) or through National Governing Bodies, federations, or other sport-specific organizations. There are numerous studies on sport-specific CE, such as recent examples examining women coaching Australian Rules Football (Carson et al, 2021) and women coaching rugby (Barrett et al, 2021). However, Trudel and colleagues (2020) noted a lack of studies on CE in higher education.…”

‘Coach, or female coach? And does it matter?’: An autoethnography of playing the gendered game over a twenty-year elite swim coaching career

“…Theorisation of how socio-cultural issues affect women's developmental coach pathways (Sisjord et al 2020), their experiences on formal coach education courses (Barrett, Sherwin and Blackett 2021) and the formation of their gendered identities (Mennesson 2012) has been increasingly made through the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Indeed, Bourdieu's theorisation of the practices social agents employ and embody was based on their socialisation and immersion to the cultural surroundings; "one must remember that, ultimately, objective relations do not exist and do not really realize themselves except in and through the system of dispositions of the agents, produced by the internalization of objective conditions" (Bourdieu and Zanotti-Karp, 1968: 705).…”